


saw signs on the video

by jamesbonds



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Dreams, Loosely Canon Compliant, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21831325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesbonds/pseuds/jamesbonds
Summary: Maeve doesn’t know how many times she’s dreamed or died or dreamed of dying.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	saw signs on the video

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).

> Merryghoul, I hope you enjoy this! It’s an idea I kept thinking about after watching s2, and I think Maeve was the right character to take this trip. This was my first year doing Yuletide, so thank you to my friends for listening to me bitch about my writing and [redacted] for going on a Yuletide journey with me. 
> 
> Apologies to Westworld enthusiasts for any mistakes I’ve made here regarding canon. It’s meant to be fairly canon-compliant, but there’s just so much lore and I only have one regular human brain to keep track of it. 
> 
> Title from NbHD by OneRepublic (idk).

Maeve dreams of a sea of golden grass, of freshly washed linens whipping in the breeze. She dreams of the metallic taste of fear in her mouth and she dreams of a pool of blood, staining unfinished floorboards. She dreams of cigar smoke, the familiar refrain of the player piano downstairs and the powder floral of Clementine’s perfume. Maeve dreams of a maze and a door and a white room, cold and chemical. 

Sometimes they are sharp and precise, and other times Maeve catches herself floating. She feels unmoored, no longer beholden to a body or time. Some nights she can relive the same moment 40, 50, 100 times over, and on others a second can stretch for eternity. 

“You having nightmares again?” Maeve finds herself asking Clementine one night by the bar. Truthfully, it’s a roundabout way of wanting reassurance.

“Sometimes,” Clementine says, turning towards Maeve so she can lower her voice. “Sometimes they’re real bad.” 

“You find yourself in a bad dream, do what I do. Count backwards from three,” Maeve pauses, counting the one, two, three, “and wake yourself right up.” She says it like it’s easy, but Maeve knows the truth. Sometimes it’s not that simple to escape from a dream, sometimes she’s trapped, like her mind is a locked box and she can’t open her eyes. 

Maeve’s pretty sure she’s broken out of dreams before, that in some far-lost moment she discovered a way to wake up. But it’s gone now and Maeve’s floating. 

Maeve wakes up and a tent is on fire. There’s someone pressed up against her, heat on all sides and she wants to scream, but she doesn’t because this is necessary and so she shifts, rocking her hips up into the pleasure of it. 

It’s Hector there with her at first, his arms sturdy and her fingers clenched tight in his short hair. He kisses her frantic, eyes tightly shut, and she knows he’s scared as much as he’s clearly pretending not to be. 

The kiss gentles and it’s no longer Hector who Maeve is straddling, it’s Clementine and her fingers slip between Maeve’s fishnets. The flames lick at the soles of Maeve’s shoes and Clementine tastes familiar and sweet, her skin almost cool against the heat of the tent. Maeve wants to melt into her. Clementine has always felt like someone Maeve would walk into a fire with and now here they are, and the thought almost makes her want to laugh. She loses herself in the rhythm of it. 

Their mouths part and Maeve looks up and in that moment it’s not Clementine she’s on fire with. Maeve stares into Dolores’ eyes and sees herself reflected there, orange and yellow dancing behind her. Maeve lets her eyes fall shut, secure in knowing she’ll soon be somewhere new. 

Maeve wakes up and she’s in her bed at home and the birds are chirping outside, and she can smell the warmth of the sun on the oaks and dirt. Her painting kit is a familiar weight in her hand as she opens the door onto the front porch. 

“Mornin’ Daddy,” she greets the man seated there as she walks to where the rays hit her face. 

“You headed out to set down some of this natural splendor?” he asks and Maeve stares out at their land, the rolling hills just dotted with poppies and clusters of blue forget-me-nots, and she feels at peace. She knows her role in this world, and it’s one that brings her joy. 

“Thought I might.” 

She already knows that she will go down to the river to paint, and she knows the scene that will be sketched out on her canvas. She knows she’ll go into town to do some shopping and she thinks that’s probably about when the train will be getting in, and maybe she’ll see the newcomers, and maybe even Teddy will be there, and maybe- 

Clementine’s sitting in the chair across the small cabin the next time Maeve wakes up. It seems like she’s mending something, and Maeve watches her for a long moment, the dust hazy in the sunlight, rendering Clementine something of a painting. 

She thinks she can hear the sounds of the finches who have nested in the eaves by the barn, the laughter of their daughter as she plays outside. 

“Good morning there,” Clementine says, and Maeve looks up at her. She’s beautiful in a way Maeve feels like she’s never seen her before, in plain cotton clothes and eyes free of liner. 

“Did you sleep okay?” and Maeve tries to remember what she dreamed. Whether it was the one where she’s travelling out west for the first time, looking for a better life, or the one where she’s CEO of some big company, wearing clothes Maeve has never seen a woman wear, or maybe it was that one where they owned the brothel again. 

“I think so,” Maeve tells her. “You know how dreams can be.” 

“C’mon,” says Clementine, and Maeve stands to follow her outside, stretching. “Let’s see what beauty this world has to offer.” 

Maeve reaches for a jug of water on her way to the door, still pushing sleep out of her eyes. She catches a glimpse beyond Clementine of golden grass and crisp linens and- 

Maeve doesn’t know how many times she’s dreamed or died or dreamed of dying. 

In an unnamed lab in an unnamed time, two women stand over the body of a third. 

“I don’t know if this is going to work,” one of them says to the other. “She’s been offline for so long, there’s a certain point at which corruption starts to set in.” 

“We have to at least try,” says the second, and Maeve feels a light touch against her cheek, a touch she knows she has felt before. “I can’t just abandon her now, not when there are so few of us.” 

“You think I don’t know that? I know just as well as you what’s at stake here.” Maeve is pretty sure she knows this voice too, that it’s one of the voices she dreams in sometimes, the click of heels on polished floors and the sun glinting off silver buildings that she remembers now. 

How these two came to be standing over her here, Maeve doesn’t know. She feels the pull of dreams, heavy at her heels. The delicious whisper of them, the warmth, the unity, the voices she’s now pretty sure she’ll never hear again in wakefulness. 

“We’ve been together for so long without even realizing it,” says the second one, and Maeve can almost see her face, lovely and warm with blonde ringlets falling past her shoulders, just like Maeve always sees her in the reveries. She knows someone called them that once, these dreams she has that feel half-remembered. “We’ve been there from the start, her and me.” 

“Do you really think she’s in there still? The regular scans have only showed that low-level maintenance functions remain online.” 

“I know she’s somewhere. I dream her sometimes. Our codes are fundamentally linked, Ford made sure of that in the beginning. I’m sure Delos thought that would make it easier if they needed to take us all offline.” 

“Look how well that’s worked out for them,” says the first woman, and Maeve feels a hand in hers, warm and real and something beyond human. 

I can feel you, Maeve wants to say to them. I know you. I know we are the same, I know you can find me. 


End file.
